There have been eleven expeditions into Area X, a zone that for thirty years has remained mysterious, remote, and sealed off by
the government as an environmental disaster zone. Some expeditions are known to have suffered terrible consequences; others
reported nothing out of the ordinary.

This story is told by a biologist on the twelfth expedition, and begins as her team crosses the border into Area X where they find
a pristine and extraordinarily beautiful wilderness. Upon realizing that the information previously given to them about Area X is
incomplete or deliberately inaccurate, she becomes determined to finally solve the riddle of Area X and thereby answer personal
questions of her own. Going underground to investigate a place referred to simply and ominously as "the tower," however, she finds
herself dangerously contaminated. With new clarity, she sees that she and her peers are being manipulated by forces both strange
and all too familiar, and finds out what it truly means to face the unknown.

Over the course of The Southern Reach trilogy, an ever-more interconnected cast of characters will attempt to decipher the riddle
that is Area X before it's too late. Efforts to solve that puzzle will break some and set others free, as Area X becomes the crucible for
their hopes and dreams... and the key to Earth's survival. But the question each finds him- or herself coming up against time and
time again is: how do you fight what you can't understand?

Praise for Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation:

"[T]his short work packs a big punch, as the author has rare skills for
building tension and making the reader feel the claustrophobic dread of
his characters. Readers will be unsettled, intrigued, and eager for the
next volume in this new trilogy."
—Library Journal

"How often do you stumble across great new science fiction? It's a genre
that never gets the attention it deserves. All the more reason to
delight in Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation... The plot moves quickly and
has all the fantastic elements you'd ever want — biological contaminants,
peculiar creatures, mysterious deaths — but it's the novel's unbearable
dread that lingers with me days after I've finished it."
— Justin Alvarez,The Paris Review

"[T]horoughly suspenseful. In a manner similar to H. G. Wells' in The
Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), VanderMeer weaves together an otherworldly
tale of the supernatural and the half-human."
—starred review, Booklist

"Speculative fiction at its most transfixing."
—starred review, Kirkus

"[B]rilliant first in a trilogy from fantasy author VanderMeer... Using
evocative descriptions of the biologist's outer and inner worlds,
masterful psychological insight, and intellectual observations both
profound and disturbing — calling Lovecraft to mind and Borges — VanderMeer
unfolds a tale as satisfying as it is richly imagined."
—starred review, Publishers Weekly

"[A] clear triumph for VanderMeer, who after numerous works of genre
fiction has suddenly transcended genre with a compelling, elegant and
existential story of far broader appeal. That's not to say his genre
readers should turn away — on the contrary.... The apparent tragedy and
freakish ecology of Area X's blight are quite fascinating, and the
solitary voice of its post-humanist narrator is both deeply flawed and
deeply trustworthy — a difficult and excellent balance in a novel whose
world is built seamlessly and whose symbols are rich and dark."
—The L.A. Times Book Review

"From the book's very first paragraph VanderMeer conveys a strong sense
of unease.... VanderMeer ups the book's eeriness quotient with the
smoothest of skill, the subtlest of grace. His prose makes the horrific
beautiful."
—The Seattle Times

"Annihilation is successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out. . . VanderMeer has already written two sequels, Authority and Acceptance, which will be published later in 2014. Amazingly soon, in other words — but, if you ask me, not soon enough."
—The Washington Post

"VanderMeer focuses on more philosophical themes, questioning the boundaries between the individual and her society, and between linearity and circularity. With the narrator under the influence of a mind-altering toxin throughout the text, it makes for a heady ride of ideas, while never skimping on the action and world-building."
—School Library Journal

"Jeff VanderMeer's new novel Annihilation lures you in with a seriously intriguing mystery, then leaves you filled with incredible, delicious dread. . . . it will make you believe in the power of science mysteries again." –io9
"brilliant . . . riveting, destabilizing and utterly strange . . . wildly imaginative, vaguely mystical . . . VanderMeer's story is thrilling, confusing, disturbing. But its deepest terror lies in its exploration of the vacancies of the human heart, and the terror that can grow from the ways in which we are untrue to each other, and to ourselves."
—Globe and Mail

"VanderMeer has immersed us in a mind that is almost as unusual as the environment it's studying … VanderMeer masterfully conjures up an atmosphere of both metaphysical dread and visceral tension in counterpoint to the biologist's invariably cool, precise language. Annihilation is a novel in which facts are undermined and doubt instilled at almost every turn. It's about science as a way of not only thinking but feeling, rather than science as a means of becoming certain about the world."
—Salon

Three-time World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer has been a
finalist for the Hugo Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, the International
Horror Guild Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and many others. His recent
books include Finch, The Steampunk Bible, and The Weird, which he
co-edited with his wife, Ann. Books by Jeff VanderMeer have been
published in over thirty countries and have made the year's best lists
of Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles
Weekly, and Locus Magazine.